Jon Del Arroz of Danville filed a report saying his campaign raised $78,920 in the first half of this year, all from individuals, and he loaned his campaign $230,000. The campaign spent $32,199.53, leaving $276,720.47 cash on hand (much of which as encumbered by debt, although mostly to his loan) as of June 30.

Brad Goehring of Lodi filed a report saying his campaign raised $13,900 from April 1 through June 30, all from individuals, and he loaned his campaign $250,000. The campaign spent $5,092.40, leaving $258.807.60 cash on hand (encumbered by debt to the full amount of his loan) as of June 30.

And McNerney filed a report saying his campaign raised $288,723.13 – $148,737.88 from individuals, $140,500 from PACs and $235.25 from political party committees – from April 1 through June 30. The campaign already had $309,923.58 at the period’s start and spent $81,747.93 in that period, leaving $519,170.58 cash on hand as of June 30 with $22,417.40 in outstanding debts.

I suspect Farmer Brad has sufficient assets to loan the $250k without raiding the college fund. Inherited family wealth is a wonderful thing.

To say that Mr. Del Arroz’s resume is thin, and wildly embellished at that, would be too kind. Must be some rich parents or in-laws in the picture somewhere. If your headline career accomplishment is “advisor to the board of directors” of an unknown “cutting edge social networking company,” then your home in an affluent Danville neighborhood and $230k to loan a hopeless campaign are worthy of some questions about “sources and uses” of funds.

John W

Del Arroz appears to be late 20ish or early 30ish. The online phone directory lists a home address for him in Danville. According to Zillow.com, the home at that address last sold for $53k in 1979 and had 2008 property taxes of $1,980. I’ll put Mr. Del Arroz down as a “no” on reforming Prop. 13.

http://www.alamedagop.org Walter, Alameda County GOP Vice Chairman

What seems to be the hold-up with McNerney signing on as a co-sponsor of H.R.1207? Doesn’t he support accountability & transparency in government? He’s had plenty of time to read the 1-page bill.

H.R.1207 has 271 individual co-sponsors in the House and a companion bill in the Senate (S.604) that is picking-up support as well.

Frank

Del Arroz is 26 years old I think (ran across that somewhere). Goehring is the only GOP hopeful in this race, but I think you may have slightly misunderstood that quote. To lose 80% of one’s crop in a single year would be devastating. The fact that he has maintained a measure of wealth is admirable, actually. If he modeled his spending habits after CA budgeting, or worse federal budgeting, then he would not have adjusted his spending, he WOULD have dipped into that savings, and (heaven forbid) another bad year came along he would have gone Bankrupt, much like Dem. spending is doing to California. So, while you may like to attack candidates for having some amount of personal wealth I think it’s silly to villify someone for their success. Heaven forbid McNerney should ever earn an honest buck outside of his government paycheck, his company couldn’t turn the barest minimum of profits, although I’m sure his vote on cap and trade won’t in any way result in increased profitability down the road. No, that would be… dishonest?

John W

I’ll take your point that only one of the two is a contender for the GOP nod. No problem for me if somebody has wealth and wants to self-finance his or her campaign. How they acquired that wealth is always of interest to me. Having spent most of my boyhood on the plains of western Kansas, I appreciate the challenges farmers face in hanging onto their wealth, no matter how they got it in the first place. My post regarding Goehring was mostly a response to the initial remark about raiding savings or borrowing the money to lend his campaign — something I assume he did not have to do, or would have been crazy enough to do if the family nestegg were at risk. All that said, I’ll stick with Jerry M.

John W

Walter re H.R. 1207

Have to confess, I hadn’t heard of this one. After looking it up, I notice it has significantly less co-sponsor support in the Senate — 13 according to what I saw. I’m surprised that many people on both sides of the aisle in the House agreed to co-sponsor a Ron Paul bill. Not something I would sign onto were I in Congress. Looks like a slippery slope to politicizing the Fed, which I’m totally against. Usually, when there are that many co-sponsors, it means you have a bunch of people on record as being in favor of something with populist appeal, but far fewer people with any intention of actually voting for it. I earnestly hope that’s the case here, and I give McNerney a high five for not playing the game.

http://www.alamedagop.org Walter, Alameda County GOP Vice Chairman

John W. – That’s too bad that you wouldn’t support transparency and accountability when it comes to an institution that has so much control over our monetary policy. The truth is, the Federal Reserve and their dealings are, for the most part, very secretive and therefore unaccountable when it comes to congressional over site. Furthermore, when they print up money out of thin air to fund the big-government agenda, the purchasing power of every dollar in your pocket, and every dollar in your savings account drops. Not to mention the fact that without an audit, how can we determine what “reserves” the Federal Reserve really has?

The companion bill in the Senate (S.604) has been picking-up support, however, nothing like H.R.1207. Sometimes bills progress slower in the Senate as far as co-sponsorship goes because Senators are more likely to govern as trustees, as opposed to delegates. Plus, Senator Bernie Sanders was not pushing his bill in the Senate up until H.R.1207 reached 200 + co-sponsors. On July 15th the Senate bill picked-up five more co-sponsors, and you’ll be surprised two-weeks from now. Remember that the Senate only needs a simple majority (51).

The United States Constitution, gives the United States Congress the authority to coin Money and regulate the value thereof and does not give Congress the authority to delegate control over monetary policy to a central bank.

John W

Walter,

Am not opposed to transparency and accountability. But Ron Paul’s oft-stated goal is to disband the Federal Reserve. So, I see this legislation in that context — i.e., start by politicizing the Fed in the guise of auditing it. Wound it, then kill it. The Fed is a creature of Congress. So, Congress clearly has the power to to change how it interacts with the Fed, or even to completely abolish the Fed and its central banking and monetary policy functions. Not a wise move, in my opinion; but they could do it. However, I doubt the Federal Reserve Act or the operation of the Fed pursuant to that act constitutes an unlawful delegation in violation of the Article I language you quoted. However, one is always free to test that notion through the courts, as occured in the case of the line item veto.

John W.

http://www.alamedagop.org Walter, Alameda County GOP Vice Chairman

John W. – While you seem to be a pretty reasonable guy, I fail to understand your logic.

You say, “The Fed is a creature of Congress.”

Well, if that’s your position, why shouldn’t Congress audit the Fed?

When Congress does audit the Fed, we’ll probably all agree then that it does need to be abolished.

It would appear that most of the House of Representatives agrees with Ron Paul that the Fed needs to be audited. They see an audit as being an accountabilty measure that will provide some badly needed transparency when there seems to be very little at this point in time.

Maybe you and I will just have to agree to disagree on this one John.

BJD

I wonder how long until people want to audit the pentagon.

John W

Walter,

Agree on the “agree to disagree” part.

http://www.alamedagop.org Walter, Alameda County GOP Vice Chairman

Hey John W. – I thought that you’d be happy to hear that H.R. 1207 has 275 co-sponsors and S. 604 has 17 as of today! Transparency & Accountability seem to be pretty popular in Congress right now.